《𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭》|𝐄𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐢/𝐑𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐧|

ᴄᴀᴘɪᴛᴜʟᴜᴍ xxɪ: ǫᴜɪ ᴀᴍᴀɴᴛ ɪᴘsɪ sɪʙɪ sᴏᴍɴɪᴀ ғɪɴɢᴜɴᴛ

The image above is the cutest thing you'll see this week, period.

📜Chapter 21: Lovers make up their own dreams📜

𝑁𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟'𝑠 𝑃𝑂𝑉

About three years later, on a spring day of the year 94 BC that was way too warm for that area, there was a little boy -nothing more than a baby- who could barely walk and kept tripping over his own feet: he was trying to run, clumsily, down a corridor, on a mosaic floor.

He kept crying and sobbing, to get the attention of the adult he had learnt would come, if he could just cry loud and long enough.

He fell again, but couldn't get up this time: so, he kept screaming while laying down.
At that point, his cries-prayers were answered as he recognised the familiar figure of a tall, long haired brunet approaching him.

As soon as the brunet held him in his arms, the boy stopped crying.
But kept sobbing, as the older checked his whole body to try to find some eventual scratches or wounds: the little one seemed to get a few new ones every day.

"It's that cat again..?
You never learn you have to stop bothering it, don't you..?
C'mon, let's take care of the boo boo..."

The boy rested his forehead -raven locks all over it- against the older's shoulder, and kept sucking the thumb of the hand that wasn't injured.

The scratch was meticulously taken care of, and the kid's belly tickled to make him smile again.

"E-E..?"
"It's E-R-E-N, can you say E-R-E-N?"
"E-E!!"
"At least you're trying. You'll get there some day."

And after that brief dialogue they were both back in the boy's nursery, where all his clothes and toys were kept: a lot of them.
He was growing up so spoiled.

...

That play session didn't last long: Eren could tell the boy was tired by how grumpy he was.
He needed to sleep.

So he held him in his arms, and thought that even if he'd grown a ton, he was still so small the brunet was afraid he'd kill him with every sudden move.

He began to rock, while the boy protested.
"Yeah, yeah, I know it's not the same.
I miss him too.
But I've been counting days, and he should be home today or tomorrow.
And he never makes us wait.
But you gotta sleep now, boy..."

...

Eren had basically become the second nanny of the boy, who'd just learnt to walk but would sometimes still fall every two, three steps.

'Shortie', as his grandmother had nicknamed him, was used to be around several, different people every day, but it was pretty obvious to everyone how the servant with the deep green eyes was the little master's favourite.

Not that Eren was good with children or anything: that new chore had caught him off guard, just like the others.
It was that obvious, yet no one could explain why the baby loved Eren so much.

In fact, their adult noses couldn't feel how much of the boy's father's smell was on the brunet.
Shortie was attached to his dad, and suffered from separation anxiety as well: in that smell, he'd found comfort since his first days of life.

Eren exited the room after having put the boy to sleep, and watched over him for about an hour.

And right there, he found the slightly taller copy of the young master: resting against a wall, just a few feet between them.

The bags under his eyes had gotten worse, his insomnia too, and he'd for sure lost quite a bit of weight.

Yet, his still well-shaped body, his unique eyes, the scars all over his body that the younger loved tracing during their cuddling-sessions, still charmed the latter.